THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080489
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
A Republican-dominated House committee avoided a showdown with House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday when it approved a watered-down version of a bill granting the governor the veto.
The move virtually guarantees that the measure will be approved when it comes up for a vote on the House floor later this week and means North Carolina's voters could cast ballots on the measure within the next two years.
North Carolina is the only state in the nation that does not give its governor the right to veto legislation.
After adjourning earlier in the day for Republican House leaders to negotiate terms of the bill with their Democratic colleagues, the House Judiciary I Committee voted without dissent to delete a portion of a Republican-sponsored bill giving the governor a line-item veto, and to send the bill to the floor.
The House bill calls for a referendum on the measure in November 1996. If approved by voters, the bill would amend the state Constitution effective Jan. 1, 1997.
Rep. Richard T. Morgan, R-Moore, said the compromise by the House committee would give the voters an opportunity to decide whether to approve a gubernatorial veto.
``Historically, the House has been the burial ground of the veto,'' he said.
While Senate Democrats rebuffed a challenge by Republicans in that chamber to include a line-item veto in the version of the bill passed last week, the Republican sponsors included a line-item veto, or the authority to strike out specific accounts or projects within spending bills, in their version of the bill.
Rep. John M. Nichols, R-Craven, sponsor of the House veto measure and a proponent of the line-item veto, said before the vote that he would be willing to drop the line-item veto and change other aspects of the bill if it would ensure passage in the House.
``I think it's more important that we get the bill passed,'' he said. ``There is more than one good idea up here . . . and we've got to have some Democratic votes to pass this thing.''
The House and Senate versions contain many similarities:
Both call for a three-fifths vote in both chambers to override a gubernatorial veto.
Both give the governor 10 days to veto bills.
Both exclude joint resolutions, General Assembly appointments, constitutional amendments and redistricting bills.
Both would bring legislators back to Raleigh within 40 days to consider whether to override any bill vetoed after the session adjourns.But differences in the House and Senate versions still exist: Only the House version contains a measure excluding local bills from a veto. And while the Senate version calls for a voter referendum on the measure in 1995, the House version delays that vote until 1996.
These differences, if they remain in the version approved by the House, would have to be resolved by a conference committee.
Proponents of the veto tout the change as a means of holding governors more responsible for enacting their agendas and as a means of promoting more responsible spending by the General Assembly.
Because the veto bill could change the state Constitution, it would need the approval of 60 percent of the House's 119 members, or 72 votes. The Republicans control only 67 seats in that chamber, so the measure needs the support of at least five Democrats to pass.
The Senate passed a veto bill by a 46-3 margin last Wednesday. by CNB